1. TheGuardian, July 19 1985. Suggestions for future laws include fully secret ballots, outlawing the pre-entry closed shop, and a right to walk through pickets:The Observer, September 14 1986.
2. This phrase has almost become axiomatic. It is used on virtually every occasion when trade union law is mentioned, e.g. by the Secretary of State for Employment, Hansard, Vol.48, Col. 157 (8th November 1983). The Government has seemingly learned the lesson of the rapid changes in union -management relations after the debacle of the Industrial Relations Act 1971.
3. ?Trade Union? bears the same meaning as it has in s.28(1) of the Trade Union and Labour Relations Act 1974, but unions without individual members (e.g. the Council of Civil Service Unions) and the International Transport Workers' Federation are excluded from the provisions of Part I of the Act by s.7.
4. For details of practices before the Act, R. Undy and R. Martin,Ballots and Trade Union Democracy, Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1984. On the new law R. Kidner, ?Trade Union Democracy: Election of Trade Union Officers?, 13Industrial Law Journal (1984), 193, and K. Mackie, ?Law Commentary?, 15(4)Industrial Relations Journal (1984), 83. The argument for trade union autonomy is put by P. Fairbrother,The Politics of Union Ballots, London, Workers' Educational Association, 1985; he argues that individual balloting weakens collective responses.
5. S.22(3) and S.I. 1985 No. 1490 S.10(3) provides for the transitional period for elections held fewer than five years before the entry into force of the Act. Even before that date the Government has achieved some successes e. g. U.C.A.T.T. changed its rulebook to comply with the Act.